Timshel
by missCanary
Summary: Shane/OC, perhaps eventually Daryl/OC - Scarlett Grimes must rely on her late husband's best friend, Shane, and a group of survivors, if she wants to make it out of Atlanta alive. *A bit of prequel before the good ol' TWD greatness* Rated M for language and adult content.
1. Chapter 1

_A Few Notes From MissCanary_

_Thank y'all for checking out my story! it's been forever since I wrote a fanfiction. My love is The Walking Dead, and so most of the characters are from the show. However… this story doesn't have Lori. I just couldn't morph her into the character I wanted for this, which resulted in Scarlett. Therefore, I give you a Shane/OC story. These first few chapters focus on the evolution of the outbreak, something we don't get to see much of in the show._

_Let me know how you like it!_

_Disclaimer: I own none of the characters except for Scarlett._

* * *

Scarlett Grimes sat hunched over the computer, forcing her eyes to focus on the screen. A tiny digital clock on the bottom right read 9:30PM. _When is this going to be over? _ Her pale fingers clawed at the air beside her, searching for a lukewarm cup of coffee.

The overhead pager clicked on. "_Scarlett, 4700 please; Scarlett, 4700._" A tired groan escaped the nurse's lips. Wearily, Scarlett picked up the off-white 1980's telephone, habitually wrapping the cord around her wrist. "This is Scarlett."

"_Hi Scarlett, this is Rachel from the lab._" Scarlett yawned, automatically logging in to her hospital account. "Hey Rachel, what can I do for you? Were y'all able to run the culture?" She heard the faceless girl clear her throat on the other end of the line. "_Yeah, well, sort of. We don't know what it is." _

The small Atlanta girl slumped against her chair, raising a pale delicate eyebrow. "I'm sorry, what? Like, you couldn't get a culture?"

"_No, we grew a culture. There was definitely an organism in Mr. Hicks' blood, but we don't know what it is. I've never seen anything like it before. All I can tell you at this point is that it's a virus, and it was transmitted by that bite."_

Scarlett eyed room 113, watching the crowd of family members mourn over their dead relative. Shoulders shook with grief as people clutched tissues and leaned on one another. "Will you relay this to Dr. Shaw please?" Rachel complied, and Scarlett quietly hung up the phone. The ICU was hushed with death. All of the day shift had gone home except for her, and the night nurses were studying their patient's charts. Even the sobs in Mr. Hicks' room were quiet.

A million thoughts ran through Scarlett's mind. She drug her fingers through light blonde hair, letting her forehead rest in her palms as she mulled over the previous six hours. He had arrived via the Rapid Response team, a balloon of oxygen manually pumping breaths into the young man's lungs. Samuel Hicks was at the clinic downstairs with his mother, having a bite looked at. When he became unresponsive, he was rushed to the ICU. Samuel's temperature was 107.2, the highest Scarlett had ever seen. Mrs. Hicks told Scarlett that her 19 year old son had been bitten as he walked home from work the previous day.

She replayed the chaotic code as they threw bags of ice all around the tortuously overheated kid. He began bucking in the ICU bed, seizing from the heat in his brain. After that, it was over. 3 defibrillations and 15 minutes of chest compressions later, Mr. Hicks was dead. Dr. Shaw called the time of death as Scarlett watched the deep gash in his arm ooze. The dressing had been ripped off in the commotion, exposing a bite so deep his bone was exposed. Scarlett shuddered, coming back to reality.

Smoothing light blue scrubs as she stood, Scarlett quietly bowed into room 113 and assessed whether his family was ready to leave. It'd been 3 hours since he died; she needed to pack him up for the morgue. No doubt Dr. Shaw would order an autopsy. The crowd cooperated and retreated to the waiting room.

She drew the curtains closed. Samuel Hicks lay in his bed, tastefully and carefully covered with a blanket, as though he were sleeping. His mother had arranged him. Usually it was up to Scarlett to clean up a deceased person, but Samuel's mother had done it herself. _It takes a strong mother to do that_, she mused. An image of Scarlett's own son suddenly flashed into her mind, and she forced it out with anger, squeezing her eyes shut and pinching the bridge of her nose.

To avoid unwanted memories, the petite nurse busied herself at the IV pump, disconnecting and coiling lines. She unhooked Mr. Hicks from the monitor, removing the blood pressure cuff and pulse oximeter.

As she shoved empty ice bags into the trash can, Scarlett heard something move behind her. Thinking it was Dr. Shaw returning for a follow-up, she turned around to greet him, but nobody was there. Scarlett frowned. "Okay then…" Looking over at Samuel, she noticed that his head was turned to the right, toward her. Alarmed, Scarlett froze and stared at the body. He still looked as dead as before. _His head must have just fallen that way. _The physics of it didn't make sense, but Scarlett was much too tired to evaluate an involuntary movement further. Bodies were known to twitch with residual nerve activity after death. She chalked it up to that and continued cleaning the room, turning back to her work.

Another movement. "Jesus Christ, we've got ourselves a twitcher", she muttered. Then, what sounded like a long exhale. This was why Scarlett hated post mortem care. It was truly creepy. Dead people weren't supposed to move and make sounds. And after what happened with her husband and son, she made great efforts to not _loathe _post mortem care. After all, it had to be done.

But then, a sound came from the body that Scarlett had never heard before. "Uunngghh." She gasped and spun around to face Samuel. It took a few seconds to process what she was seeing. Milky white eyes were open and fixed on Scarlett. The body's lower jaw was rotating slowly side to side, as if using it for the first time. Fingers twitched, and then his long, pale arm slowly lifted toward her.

Scarlett stifled a scream, stumbling backward away from the body. Samuel's eyes remained on the nurse, and his head turned to follow her as she slid against the wall, toward the curtain. Another garbled moan escaped his lips just as she crashed backwards through the curtains and onto the floor. Immediately Dr. Shaw, who had just arrived, and two night nurses were at her sides.

Scarlett leapt to her feet and tore around the nurse's desk, putting it between her and the room. "The fucking… t-the body. Samuel. He's awake." Scarlett could barely speak. Every muscle in her body was shaking, every nerve on high alert. Something was terribly, terribly wrong. He'd been dead for three hours.

Dr. Shaw glanced at the other nurses, Chad and Allison. "Scarlett, you know that bodies twitch after death, right?" He was talking to her as if explaining rules to a 5 year old.

Scarlett shook her head. "No. Go look. Go look. He was moaning at me." Involuntary tears pricked at her eyes, which irritated her. She was quickly losing her composure. People seemed to think she was unstable these days, and maybe she was, but this was real. She knew it. Dr. Shaw sighed and went to the curtains, drawing them apart with a swift yank.

As suddenly as Scarlett reacted, Chad jumped back with a stream of profanities and then rushed into the room. Dr. Shaw moved to Samuel's bedside, followed by 4 more nurses. Everybody spoke at Samuel, attaching monitors and attempting to calm him down.

_ Is this real? Did we fuck this up? He can't be alive. He hasn't taken a breath in 3 hours. _Scarlett automatically moved into the room, methodically participating in the commotion on auto-pilot as she thought. The body- Samuel- moaned. He moved his jaw in an awkward and unsettling way, raising his arms stiffly, as if they were fighting against rigor mortis. His breath stank of the beginnings of decomposition, but here he was, moaning and thrashing. He couldn't be dead.

Chad turned the monitor back on and studied it as other nurses placed wrist restraints on the inconsolable Samuel. "Dr. Shaw, I'm not getting any reading on the monitor." He turned it off and then back on, but the same showed – asystole, the characteristic wavy line that indicated no heart activity.

He examined the leads. Everything was intact. "Why isn't this reading?" he murmured. The young patient's eyes were fixed on Chad as he moved above the bed. Suddenly, Samuel found his strength and erupted into a fit of violence, attempting to break free of the restraints. His teeth snapped together and, in a flash, he clamped down onto Chad's hand.

"AAAAHHHHH!" The charge nurse ripped his hand from the man's jaws. A deep gash punctured his palm and trailed down three fingers where he'd pulled away. "Shit!" Everybody took a giant step away from the patient and Allison rushed over to tend to Chad. Scarlett stood, stunned, as she watched Samuel thrash against the restraints, snapping his jaws and fixing those milky white eyes on anything that moved. His skin was the same gray shade of pale that had accompanied him in death.

"Scarlett, call a code gray." She dashed out of the room, grateful to have an excuse to move away from the scene. Trembling fingers dialed the intercom, and she nervously wrapped the cord of the phone around her wrist. Code gray meant "combative patient", and Samuel fit that word nicely.

"Code gray, ICU; code gray." Her voice was shaking.

Reliable as they always were, security arrived in less than 30 seconds, ready for whatever scene had caused the code. Scarlett heaved a sigh of relief, feeling instantly safer. Family members of other patients were beginning to peer out of their rooms at the commotion in 113.

The guards replaced the flimsy wrist restraints with steel handcuffs, placing a pair on each ankle as well. Scarlett returned to stand by Dr. Shaw. Chad and Allison had already descended down to the Emergency Department. Two guards stood by, looking both disturbed and frightened. She glanced at the hospitalist, noticing his intent gaze on the heart monitor. Scarlett followed suit. It read nothing. No heart rhythm, no pulse, and no oxygen saturation. There weren't even respirations, save for the sporadic readings whenever the "patient" hissed and groaned.

"Maybe some versed…" The doctor seemed distant. Scarlett obeyed without even confirming the verbal order, drawing 10mL of versed, a strong sedative, into a syringe. With a twinge of fear, she moved to Samuel's arm. The 19 year old hissed his putrid breath at her, stretching as far as he could with an open and hungry mouth. He wanted to bite her. Somebody instructed the guards to hold the man's arm steady, advising them to stay clear of his mouth. Scarlett quickly administered the sedative. They all backed up again, letting him free to fight against the handcuffs.

"Any second now," Scarlett said.

But nothing happened. In fact, the patient became enraged at the constant presence of people near him. His agitation grew. The boy turned his blank and bulging eyes on Scarlett and clawed at her with trapped hands. "Give him another 10, Scarlett." Her stomach sank at the thought of going near him again, but she drew up more of the sedative. Ray, the security guard, and his comrade, approached them cautiously to further restrain the arm with IV access once more. Scarlett noticed that Samuel's wrists were bleeding from the strain against the handcuffs, with deep gashes forming in the fragile post mortem skin. _It isn't post mortem_, she reminded herself, but deep down she wondered otherwise.

As she administered the second dose, a loud crack startled them all, followed by a sickening ripping sound. "Back up!" Dr. Shaw yelled, and as Ray moved, Scarlett saw that Samuel's farthest arm had snapped at the gash where he'd been bitten, both the ulna and radius protruding from his pale skin. Each time he thrashed, another tendon snapped, another centimeter of skin ripped. The most unnerving part of all was the lack of reaction from Samuel. He didn't even notice what he was doing to his arm. He kept his disturbing gaze on her, the closest person to him, and continued thrashing.

For whatever reason, maybe shock, Scarlett didn't move. She watched him with a strange fascination, the empty syringe dangling from her small hand. He never let up, never indicated any fatigue or pain. Only violence, and what seemed like intense hunger. Somebody was talking to her, but she didn't hear. She couldn't hear anything but this _thing's_ loud raspy groans.

Samuel finally ripped his arm free in a makeshift amputation and lunged at Scarlett. The blood from his wound splattered on her arm, and she noticed that it was cold. His whole torso flipped toward her and he attempted to climb over the bed rail, his farthest leg twisting unnaturally against the cuffs.

Ray lunged at Mr. Hicks again, pulling the shoulder back so that the patient would lay flat again. Scarlett saw that Ray was struggling against Samuel's strength.

What happened next was too quick for Scarlett to process before it was too late. As quickly as Samuel had fought against Ray, his attention was suddenly _on_ Ray. He hooked his bloody stump around the guard's neck, and with a disturbing amount of strength, pulled the guard's head down to his waiting mouth.

Scarlett screamed as the patient bit down on Ray's neck, ripping a chunk of flesh into his mouth and severing the man's carotid. Dr. Shaw and the other nurses yanked Ray away from the monster and on to the floor, where the nurses began their work on him, applying pressure and attempting to occlude the gushing artery.

She heard a loud pop, so loud that her head was spinning, and watched blood blossom from Samuel's chest. Ray's partner was standing in front of the bed, his finger still on the trigger of his glock. Still the boy lunged at everyone with his mangled arm. She heard the guard swear and reload his gun, which had jammed, and another deafening pop made her jump. Samuel instantly went limp and slumped into the hospital bed, a small trickle of blood running out of a neat bullet wound in the side of his head. The other side was a mess of brain matter. It had all narrowly missed covering Scarlett with flesh and blood, and still she stood, staring at the body in the bed in a dumbfounded state of shock.

She vaguely heard one of the nurses. "Dr. Shaw, I'm not getting a pulse on Ray."

* * *

The dark apartment building was a welcome sight. Scarlett turned off her Jeep and slumped against the driver's seat, glancing at her watch. 4am. A heavy sigh escaped her lips. She wondered why she hadn't cried yet. _Probably too tired_, she thought absentmindedly. Truthfully, she was still in shock. A bottle of pills rolled in the passenger seat; Dr. Shaw had prescribed them to her and those involved in the incident, including himself. Some type of sleeping pill. He guided her into the locker room, instructing her to rinse off with chlorhexidine. When she emerged, he tried to get her to stay at the hospital, to sleep in a room with an IV of fluids and sleeping pills, but thought made her gag. She had to leave. She had to get away from the horror she'd just witnessed. In a haze, Scarlett stumbled past the frightened patients, the inconsolable family of Mr. Hicks, and out of the hospital. Somehow she found herself here.

She wasn't even sure he'd be awake.

Scarlett hesitated when she arrived at his door on the 3rd level, debating whether she should knock or not. The physical effects of the shock were beginning to come on, however, and she'd begun shaking. An animal rustled in the trees below and she nearly jumped out of her skin. So, she knocked.

He was awake. She felt him inspect her through the peephole and then wrench the deadlock. He flung the door open and stared at her. "God damn, Sky, what are you doing awake? Are you okay?"

She considered the question, blinking. Her teeth were chattering in the warm July breeze. "I don't know." Instantly he was in front of her, his strong hands cupping her face. "Hey, look at me. Look at me. Are you hurt?" The questions seemed to echo in her head, and slowly she shook her head no. Her ears were ringing. _From the gunshots_, she thought. She noticed that he was studying her intently. "You look like you seen a goddamn ghost." The softness of his normally harsh voice was soothing and familiar.

"Can I come in?"

He led her inside and sat her on the couch, a couch Scarlett knew well. It smelled like him, like Shane Walsh. It was comforting. "You want a beer?" She nodded. He left for the kitchen and she fell back into the cushion, watching the picture on the TV absentmindedly.

He came around the corner, opening two Bud Lights. His dark hair, shaved close, was covered with a black baseball hat that said POLICE in bold white print. It was stained an off white from years of use. He wore it low, shading his dark brown eyes. A charcoal gray button up shirt hung casually off his built frame, rolled to the elbows and open, exposing his muscular torso. He wasn't terribly tall, about 5'11, but his no-nonsense attitude made up for average height. Faded jeans clung on toned hips, exposing about an inch of his briefs. Shane took a long swig of his beer as he handed Scarlett hers, and then sat next to her, eyeing her with genuine worry. "Now you know damn well that keeping an ol' bulldog like me in the dark ain't gonna fly. Especially when you come knockin' at 4am. Now we can talk about this now, or we can wait, but either way I'm gonna figure out who I need to kill for puttin' that look on your face." Unlike her intermittent drawl, Shane's accent never let up. He was a born southern boy.

Scarlett looked at him, feeling so exhausted. "Something happened at work; a death. One of the security guards had to shoot a patient."

Shane's brow furrowed and he squinted at her. "That normal protocol these days?" Scarlett could tell he was trying to lighten the mood, but, regardless, she felt a lump rise into her throat. He sobered a bit, acknowledging how serious the situation was.

"No," she said thickly, taking a deep breath. "No it isn't." They looked at each other. Shane didn't press her for more information. His jaw was set very carefully. Scarlett could tell that the cop in him wanted to know more. She cleared her throat. "If I promise to explain in the morning, will you let me stay tonight? I don't want to be alone." Shane's jaw relaxed and he gaze softened.

"Scarlett you ain't ever got to ask." He brushed her chin lightly. The usual, palpable tension that hung between them was present, but Scarlett didn't care. "How 'bout we watch us some Die Hard, Mrs. G." She managed a tired smile, ignoring the prickle in her gut at the mention of her last name. Shane took another swig of his beer, assuming his normal night-owl routine. Together they sunk into the couch, his arm wrapped securely around Scarlett's tired shoulders. In seconds, she fell into a deep sleep.

* * *

_Thank you for reading! I am new to formatting on this site, so any suggestions are welcome! As always, I appreciate critiques. I'd love to hear your thoughts! The chapters will begin to pick up. I promise!_

_xoxo,_

_missCanary_


	2. Chapter 2

_Disclaimer: I own none of the Walking Dead characters._

_._

* * *

_._

A groggy fog greeted Scarlett when she woke. Momentarily disoriented, she blinked a few times and tried to remember what had happened. She didn't even dream. Slowly it all came back, and her heart sunk with each memory.

Rubbing puffy blue eyes, the nurse fought back swirling currents of memories, both of last night's events and events prior. Scarlett could thank her lucky stars for a dreamless night, but her waking hours were haunted by memories all the time. Being at Shane's was no consolation. Comfortable as his apartment was, it came with memories of incapacitating grief and nights spent crying herself to sleep.

Images of her son and husband hit Scarlett's consciousness like a brick, followed by recollections of funeral processions, gravestones, and days spent contemplating suicide. To throw in the incomprehensible catastrophe that was last night almost sent Scarlett over the edge. Her eyes automatically found the small picture hanging on Shane's living room wall. She always studied it when she was here.

In it there stood two men, proud and young, holding their "diplomas" as they graduated from the police academy. _Rick and Shane_, she thought, tasting the names together for the first time in a while. At one point, those names were practically one word, symbolizing an inseparable friendship born in high school. She came into the picture soon into college, falling in love with Rick as quickly as she decided she disliked Shane, the arrogant ladies man and Rick's roommate. Regardless, the three of them spent the rest of college exploring the country, making stupid decisions, and growing into adults. What Scarlett didn't know, was that as soon as Rick asked her to marry him, Shane decided that he loved Scarlett too. Honorable as he was, he never mentioned it, even after Rick's death.

_Death_. The word was all around her lately. Scarlett felt like the black angel of death. Just one and a half years ago, she had watched Shane burst into the hospital conference room, apologetically whispering to the team leader that he needed to see Scarlett immediately. All of Scarlett's friends and coworkers knew Shane, knew Rick, knew their son Carl, and all of them knew that seeing Shane on the clock was never a good sign.

Scarlett cautiously remembered the walk out the door to Shane, likely pale as a ghost. She remembered logging his every feature, noting the tears on his cheeks, how he fidgeted with his radio. She had rehearsed this moment. "Is he alive?"

She was impressed with how calm she kept her voice, how collected she was as Shane informed her that the car crash had killed her husband instantly. Granted, she never thought she'd lose her love to an accident, but she had always prepared for the worst being married to a police officer. What she hadn't prepared for, was what Shane said next.

"Carl was in the car. Rick was picking him up from school for a stomach ache." Scarlett remembered how her son's name caught in Shane's voice, how hopeless he sounded saying it. Blankly, Scarlett had repeated him. "Carl was in the car…"

_Carl was in the car. _ At that, Scarlett was sucked back to the present, back to the couch on which she'd woken up, back to the recent horror of her night at the ICU, and back to the wary look Shane was giving her as he stared down at her.

"How you feelin', ma'am?"

She blinked. Shane always had a knack for making himself exceptionally comfortable around her. His briefs sat loosely on his hips, with nothing else adorning him save for a raised eyebrow. "Hungover", she admitted, eyeing the ironically still-full beer on the coffee table.

"When we gon' talk about this, Sky?" Scarlett wrenched herself into a sitting position, noting that the clock read 3:15pm. He handed her a cup of coffee. Scarlett held it in her hands, shuddering against the warmth of the mug.

Shane sat down with his own cup, fumbling for the remote. "I don't mean to get all detective on you, but I got an interesting e-mail 'couple hours ago." Scarlett looked at him over her cup. Of course he did. Atlanta cops got e-mails about everything abnormal that happened in this city. "Also, this." He jutted his remote toward the TV. Morning news anchors were discussing last night's events, flashing photos of police cars and coroners parked in front of Atlanta Regional Medical Center

"So you know what happened, then."

"I know that some guy went ape shit crazy and bit two people, and I know that he was pronounced dead about three hours earlier." He considered his next comment for a moment. "Do you know that your friend, Chad, died last night?"

Scarlett was stunned. She immediately grabbed her purse, pulling out her phone. Sure enough, just about every nurse on her shift had texted, most wondering if she was okay. The most significant was an e-mail from Dr. Shaw, written at 8am. She read it intently, her stomach dropping with every word:

_Scarlett,_

_You've likely heard that Chad died last night, and you know that we lost Ray. Chad developed a fever and went into cardiac arrest early this morning, shortly after his fever hit 107. The CDC has taken blood samples from all three of them. I hate to tell you this, but the same thing happened with Ray. He "woke up", if you can call it that, and fought with us for a good 4 hours before a police officer arrived and put him down with a shot to the head. As of right now, Chad is deceased; nothing remarkable has happened with him. I will let you know if that changes._

_I'm going to be frank with you. This isn't psychological. This is medical, infectious even. I will update you with the blood analysis results. Stay safe, and contact me if you contract even the slightest fever. _

_Brandon Shaw, M.D._

Another, shorter e-mail from the hospitalist was sent at 1pm.

_Chad woke up. He bit the mortician. We are currently fighting a fever on the mortician. Will update with CDC results. _

_.  
_

* * *

_._

Shane Walsh squinted into the sun, pulling his hat low over his eyes as he always did. His left knee bounced up and down restlessly in the driver's side of his squad car. He sunk down into the chair, attempting to get comfortable for the next hour of traffic patrol.

"I tell you man, them strippers downtown _want _to call us. It's like we're fuckin' Chip 'n Dale to those bitches." Shane closed his eyes in controlled annoyance. He looked sideways at the passenger, a scrawny little trainee named Tim Mackie, with his bushy brown hair and acne pocked face. He doubted the kid had even been laid, and he was sure the trainee would use his shiny new cop badge to try and remedy that. "That one chick, Celeste? Destiny? The blonde one. I'd buy a dance or two from her."

He couldn't do it. There was no way Shane could sit and listen to Mackie for an hour. He threw his squad car into drive with a little more force than necessary, and crept out of the parking lot. Days like this made Shane miss Rick, terribly. The two of them rarely had a dull moment on duty, whether it was dicking around on patrol or actually pursuing the assholes of Atlanta. Now he either flew solo or had little punks like this dumped on him for a few weeks.

"Anyway..." Mackie faltered. The kid was running out of conversation. "You read that goddamn e-mail they sent out? Shit man, I wonder what kind of drugs are floating around to cause that shit."

Shane bristled a little. He'd forgotten about last night momentarily. "Ain't no sense speculatin', Mackie." He chewed on the toothpick that was always jutting out of his mouth. Trying to quit chewing tobacco was making his fuse dangerously short.

The sun was just about below the skyline now, and the two maneuvered their way through a middle class neighborhood right outside downtown Atlanta. Shane mulled over last night, thinking about Scarlett. He hadn't seen her in weeks before last night. She looked good last he saw her, getting some color back in those cheeks. She'd put a pound or two back on her impossibly small frame, resembling the little fitness queen that she used to be. He was starting to see smiles and jokes out of her again. But last night, Sky looked as ghostly and frail as the day she found out her boys were dead, except more terrified.

"Ay, Walsh." Shane snapped out of his thoughts and looked toward Mackie. "Look down that alley." He followed his gaze where the kid was pointing, and noticed a dark figure hunched over in the shadows of a fence. He couldn't make out what he was seeing.

They turned into the alley, creeping along slowly. The sky was a royal blue now, just a shade or two lighter than night. They were having a hard time seeing, so Shane flipped on his spotlight.

He stopped the car. "What the fuck…" The spotlight revealed two people. One, a man, was lying motionless on the ground. Hovering above him was another man, covered in what looked like blood. Shane sighed, hoping this went smoothly. "Here ya go, boy. Your first experience with this fucked up town." He clapped Mackie on the back with force. The young officer was staring at the scene in disbelief.

Shane called for back-up and opened his door, settling behind it with his pistol aimed at the man. "Sir!" he bellowed. "Put your hands in the air, do it now! Anything sudden and I will shoot you!" Shane gestured at Mackie to assume the same position, and the kid tentatively crouched beneath his own door. The bloodied man had been too preoccupied with what he was doing to notice the spotlight on him, but now he realized that he wasn't alone.

With jerky, awkward movements, the suspect turned toward Shane's voice. He had milky white eyes and peered into the spotlight without expression. Something red and slippery hung from his mouth. Shane thought his neck was bleeding, but he couldn't tell the difference from the other man's blood that covered this freak.

"Oh my fuck, he's eating that dude's organs!" Mackie heaved and vomited on the other side of the car. Shane now realized that intestines were what hung out of the man's mouth, which he chewed lazily. He could see that there wasn't much left of the victim's abdominal cavity, and decided that was all the evidence he needed to take his shot.

He took his aim and pulled the trigger, hitting the man in the heart. Sirens were howling in the distance, indicating to Shane that his back-up was on its way. Thank god for that. Shane could still hear Mackie vomiting on the other side of the squad car. _Fucking useless_, he thought.

Turning his attention back to the cannibal man, he realized that he hadn't killed the guy. Now he was standing, gazing at Mackie- who was making all sorts of noise- in a very disturbing way. "Mackie, get your fucking shit together!" He trained his gun on the man and took a second shot. Another bullet to the heart. The man barely noticed he'd been hit.

Briefly, Shane wondered if someone had replaced his magazine with goddamn blanks, and then an unsettling thought occurred to him. He read that e-mail. He'd listened to Sky recount her horrifying evening. They both sounded eerily similar to what was happening here. The man stumbled closer to Mackie, who was whimpering. "MACKIE!"

"You shot him twice! Why isn't he down? Why is he eating that guy?" The kid was terrified, and Shane saw that his gun was trembling in his hands as he backed into a fence, away from the protection of his door. So Shane repositioned his gun, and just before the monstrous man ambled out of the spotlight, Shane took a third shot, straight to the head. The man dropped to the ground.

Two cop cars screamed around the corner and down the alley, screeching to a halt near Shane. He stood with his gun still trained, staring at the dead man with fear that he'd start moving again. Mackie was a ball of anxiety. "Is _this _the shit you deal with? Is this what I gotta do? Nah man, fuck that. I don't even know what the fuck just happened. I just wanted to write tickets, this is fucked up…" He spewed on and on, nervously chattering about nothing.

Sergeant Herring came to stand beside Shane. His weathered eyes flipped between the gutted man and the body at Shane's feet. "Was that asshole _eating _the other man?" Shane finally relaxed his grip, lowering his weapon. He took his hat off and ran a calloused hand across his head. Herring spit on the ground, a large wad of tobacco in his lip.

"Tha's about right," he drawled tiredly, stepping over to the man he'd shot. He gave the suspect a once-over and noticed the bite on his neck. _Fuck_. "I think we're gonna have to get the CDC in on this one, Serg." He pointed to the bite mark. "The three who died in the hospital last night were all bitten."

Herring crossed his arms over his chest, clearly not following Shane. "Why CDC?"

Shane cleared his throat, lowering his voice. "Sky was there last night. She said-" He was interrupted by a loud scream from Mackie. The men went into attack mode, low to the ground with their guns out. "Mackie what the _fuck_?!" Shane was so tired of this asshole. He was answered by more screams from the recently-arrived coroners.

They spun around, spotting the reason for so many screams. The man – the _gutted_ man – was trying to stand up. He rolled to his side, intestines spilling out to the ground. A low moan escaped his blue lips, and those characteristic white eyes searched for a victim. Slowly he stood amidst shouting and threatening by various cops surrounding him. Herring and Shane were closest, and so that's who the corpse went for. He leaned into a walk, stumbling toward them with a quickening gait, dragging ragged intestines behind him.

Herring swore and shot at the man's heart. As Shane expected, nothing happened. Without bothering to explain, he raised his gun and planted a bullet into the man's brain, dropping him as he'd dropped the other one.

A heavy thud behind him indicated that Mackie had fainted.

.

* * *

.

_Thanks for reading! I would love some feedback!_

_xoxo_

_missCanary_


	3. Chapter 3

_Notes from missCanary  
_

_Hello friends :) I apologize for going MIA for a week. I had to go and graduate college! I officially have my Bachelor of Science in Nursing :D_

_Anyway, as always, please let me know how I'm doing. I'm not quite sure about the reception this story is getting, so I'll give it a couple more chapters. _

_Disclaimer: I own none of the Walking Dead characters._

* * *

Shane thundered down the sticky pavement. It was hot; so very hot.

_Be alive, be alive, please be alive. _The mantra pushed Shane forward. He wove through double parked cars and shoved past horrified people, ignoring their pleas as they noticed his police uniform. Beads of sweat stung his eyes. _Please God, be alive._

The scene before him was terrifying. Hundreds of people pushed toward the entrance of the ER, shouting and wailing. The intense heat amplified a disturbing metallic smell in the air. _Blood_.

There was so much of it. Men were missing ears; women clung to mangled fingers; a mother pressed hard on her infant's shoulder, or what was left of it. Angry fathers tried to beat a pathway to the door, causing more blood. And then there were the uninjured civilians, just plain panicked people attempting to find safety in the hospital.

Shane skidded to a halt, backing up a few steps. There was no way he'd get inside. Furious, he slammed his fist down on a car, alarming three trembling children inside. He briefly wondered where their parents were; probably drowning in the crowd. Normally, Shane would have helped them. He would have helped all of these people.

The low drone of the undead wafted through thick summer wind, followed by a rotted stench of decay. The _walkers_, as he'd heard them dubbed, were forming a herd, attracted by the crowd of people not yet aware that they were trapped. They approached slowly but mercilessly, oozing around cars with their wet raspy groans.

Shane had to get away before the crowd noticed. It might be a death sentence if he didn't. With one last look at the children, he motioned for them to get down onto the floorboards, dashing away from the crowd toward the back of the hospital.

A grassy hill led down to the docking station, where supplies were delivered. Shane practically flew down it. He tried to ignore the truckload of bodies, rolled in white sheets with tufts of bloody hair sticking out. The smell was overwhelming. Pulling his undershirt up over his nose, Shane dashed up the steps, past the men in charge of loading the corpses. They paid him no mind; it seemed the police uniform came in handy.

Immediately Shane spotted Allison, who was rounding up the steps with an armful of supplies. "YOU!" He pointed directly at the flustered nurse, stopping her in her tracks. "Where is she?"

Allison looked exhausted, her scrub jacket speckled with blood. "W-who?"

Shane tried to be patient, but he could barely stand to stop moving. "Scarlett. Where is Scarlett?"

Blood curdling screams erupted from outside. The herd had finally descended upon the crowd. "I don't, I don't know…" She looked toward the screams, wide-eyed and paralyzed.

"God damn it." He abandoned the frozen nurse, leaping up the steps in threes toward the ICU. He'd take his chances, hoping she was in her usual post.

Shane had popped off dozens of those fucking geeks over the last few days. Ever since the night he put down those two men, they'd multiplied like goddamn rabbits. Any time he wasn't working in overdrive, he was sleeping or watching the news, usually at Scarlett's house. That's all they'd done for 3 days. Work, sleep, and watch the news. Then she got called in; "Disaster Mode" they'd said. Shane knew what that meant. She wouldn't be relieved until this bullshit calmed down, and he knew it wasn't going to calm down. It was quickly getting worse. He hadn't heard a peep out of her in 24 hours, and she'd promised to call him every 4. When that riot broke out, Shane knew it was time to find her and get the hell away from the hospital.

If Sky was alive, that is. The thought made him rage with fear.

He burst through the stairwell door to the ICU, stumbling into pure chaos. The horror outside the ER had only extended up to the second floor. Distressed faces surrounded Shane, dripping with blood and fear. Each room burst with people trying to be treated, all of them dead or dying. Security guards in black uniforms surrounded the centralized nursing station, attempting to control the panic and keep the dead, well, dead.

A dark-haired nurse whisked by, clutching her wrist. Shane latched on to her shoulder, turning her around. Her face was pale and clammy as blood dripped between her fingers onto the floor. "Got bit" she mumbled, and he let her stumble away.

Retrieving his gun from the worn hip holster, Shane slid along the wall, eyeing every mouth that came within three feet of him. Rick had looked Shane in the eye once and made him swear that he would keep Scarlett safe if anything ever happened. It wasn't a hard promise to make, as he couldn't think of many people worth saving more than Sky, but the impending apocalypse made matters more difficult. If he couldn't find the woman, he couldn't protect her.

Thunderous beating shook the walls. It sounded like a helicopter. Shane glanced out the windows and noticed the biggest goddamn Apache helicopter he had ever seen, landing in front of the riot and releasing soldiers. Another was small on the horizon, headed toward the hospital.

If the military was here, that meant Shane was out of time. He scooted past the security guards as they rushed into a room, hearing that dreaded moaning. The crack of a gun silenced it.

Each room was full, but there was no sign of Scarlett. He rounded the entire floor, looking at any female that resembled her, dead or alive. No Scarlett. _I'm gonna die in this goddamn hospital. I'm gonna fail Rick. _

Just as he was about to yell out in anger, he spotted her.

She was in the hallway right outside the ICU, trying to get a terrified woman to stand up. As if on cue, seven corpses rounded the corner, ambling toward the two women with their disturbing hungry gazes. Four of the walkers were in hospital gowns; two wore scrubs, and one was naked as a damn jaybird.

"SCARLETT!" Shane flew through the double doors, yanking her behind him in one fluid movement. The woman on the floor wailed.

"Shane, help me! She won't move." The group was dragging forward, hissing and clawing at them.

Shane grimaced in frustration, fighting the urge to pick Sky up and run. "Stay behind me," he barked. Quickly he approached the hysterical woman, shaking her firmly on the shoulder. "Ma'am, it's time to go. Stand up." The dead were about ten feet away now, twitching in excitement. "Lady you got to get up, you see them?" He pulled on her arm, but she was dead weight, crying hysterically.

Scarlett abandoned her hiding spot behind him, moving to the woman's other side. "I've got this arm, you get that one. We're going to pull her into the ICU on three. One, two, three." They pulled the woman up and dragged her toward the entrance. However, they weren't fast enough.

A walker collapsed on top of the woman's legs, biting into them ravenously. She bellowed out in pain, thrashing against Shane and Scarlett.

"_Shit!" _Shane dropped her arm, hopping away from the hungry mouths as they all lowered onto the woman. Scarlett backed into the door, staring in shock.

"Move, NOW" Without waiting for a reply, he forced her through the ICU doors, gun out and ready to kill. The woman's screams faltered as she succumbed to death beneath the monsters. Shane dragged Scarlett down the hall, rounding bodies and ignoring all the cries for help. A sharp burst of gunshots rang out on the floor as they flew through the door and into the stairwell. The heavy door clicked shut. "Keep moving, Sky. We're outta time." They descended quickly back the way Shane came in, breathing ragged and heavy with adrenaline.

Shane heard Scarlett inhale sharply as they reached the bottom landing. "Oh Jesus, Allison!" Her coworker lay crumpled at the docking bay. Two walkers tore at her, ripping strips of skin and muscle from her lifeless body. Her eyes stared blankly back at the stairwell, hand still gripping a piece of equipment she'd come downstairs for in the first place. Her head lolled each time the dead pulled away another chunk of her flesh.

Shane turned to Scarlett with his hand still clamped firmly onto hers. He put a finger to her lips, signaling the need for silence, and looked at her with reassurance. At least, he hoped it was reassuring. They melted against the wall, attempting to be as invisible as possible to the deadly corpses. Shane tried to ignore how his fingers shook against the grip of his shotgun. His palms were sweaty as he eyed the two undead bastards. If he shot at them, it would attract more. Plus, Shane was pretty sure he only had one bullet. He crept along slowly, unsure of where he was going.

He felt Sky pull at his hand to stop him. He turned to her as she silently unclipped her badge, motioning to the door in front of them. It was a locked supply room. He watched her squeeze her eyes shut and wave the badge over a sensor, which unlocked the door with a loud and revealing beep.

The walkers' heads snapped up at the noise. The cop and the nurse dove inside, just as a deafening _boom _erupted outside and cut the power off, shaking the entire facility.

The door clicked shut, leaving Shane and Scarlett trapped in darkness. The two walkers approached and thumped against the door, moaning hungrily.

* * *

_Thanks for reading!_

_Other characters will start popping up soon (read: next chapter!)_

_xoxo_

_missCanary_


	4. Chapter 4

_Notes from missCanary_

_Squee! I am so excited about this chapter. I had a lot of fun writing it :) please review!_

_Disclaimer: I own none of the Walking Dead characters. None at all. Zilch._

**_Scarlett_**

* * *

_BOOM._

_ BOOM._

A plastic bottle of saline shook from a supply shelf, landing heavily on Scarlett's shoulder. She stifled a scream, scrambling backward blindly and bumping into Shane. He wrapped his hands around her shoulders reflexively, steadying her.

"What are we supposed to do?" She spoke in a harsh hiss of a whisper, shaking. Outside, the two walkers scratched and bumped at the door, trying clumsily to break in. "They were eating Allison. That woman upstairs; oh god, how the fuck are we supposed to get out of this?"

Another boom shook the shelves in the dark supply room. Scarlett felt Shane fumbling around, and then the bright light of his flashlight clicked on. "This ain't smart, Sky." He studied the room apprehensively. "One of them assholes could've been waiting in here for two sitting ducks like us. And now we're trapped. I don't see another door out of here."

"Yeah, but we can at least get our bearings now." Scarlett ran her fingers through her hair, suppressing an urge to vomit. Walkers threw themselves against the door in a rage. The nurse tried to think, but nothing logical would form in her head. Her tongue felt numb in her mouth.

She'd felt this feeling once before, shortly after she learned that Carl had died; that impending doom feeling, like she couldn't catch her breath. She was about to have a panic attack.

To try to hold it off, Scarlett talked. "I thought you were Rick when you first came up beside me; haven't made that mistake in a while. Th-this whole thing…do you think it started with Mr. Hicks? How can it possibly work? How can dead people walk? They're so _violent_." Scarlett's voice was trembling. She kept shifting her weight, trying to shake off the panic.

Shane looked at her funny. He grabbed her hands. "Shh shh shh; hey. Stay with me Sky. Don't lose it just yet, we'll get out of this. I didn't drive through a city of undead assholes to rescue you and then die. I ain't giving up that easy, Miss Grimes."

She looked into his eyes, which were trying so hard to be kind. Soothing people wasn't typically Shane's forte. She took a few deep breaths. Slowly the tightness in her chest dispersed. The hot feeling in her cheeks crept back downward.

Another slam against the door by the two walkers. This time they heard a crack in the door frame. Like that fateful night with Mr. Hicks, Scarlett managed to pull herself out of the fog and back to reality. Her thoughts cleared a bit. Soon there would be two hungry dead people in this supply room. _Who knows what else is going on out there_, she mused.

She pinched the bridge of her nose, assessing what to do. Looking up, she noticed Shane pick up a piece of tubing, casually wondering what it was while he kept track of the door. The next step instantly became obvious.

"Holy fuck, we're in a supply room." Shane cocked an eyebrow.

"Well no shit, sweetheart. You led us here."

Scarlett jumped to the other side of the room, drawing her badge down to swipe across a big box with an attached computer. The screen flickered on with a three toned beep. _It has a battery life! _She almost laughed, she was so happy. The two walkers cried out with hunger at the sound of the beeps.

"_What are you doing?_" Shane hissed, hovering over her and eyeing the door.

"I'm stocking up." It was a medication cart that Sky accessed, and it had only a few hours of life left. She methodically clicked on each patient, scrolling down the lists of medications and pulling out whatever she thought might be useful: penicillin, vancomycin, IV Tylenol, morphine, hydrocodone; the list went on. Every button she clicked elicited a loud beep from the machine.

"Okay, not only is what you're doing _blatantly _illegal, but every time you push a damn button you excite those fuckers outside. I only got one bullet left, Sky. That ain't gonna fare too well for us."

"Just bear with me, Officer Walsh." Scarlett kept beeping along until she was satisfied, her pockets now filled with vials and pills. She then unlocked the very bottom drawer, hoping she would find the most important object of all.

Another slam racked the frame almost completely through. Shane threw himself against the door, fighting the strength of the two walkers outside. "Goddammit!"

Scarlett spun around, holding a Glock 22 into the light. "Will this help?"

Shane looked totally bewildered as he pushed against the door. "You tryna tell me this hospital stocks guns now?"

She removed the magazine, checking that it was loaded. _Thank god Rick taught me all this_. "When that incident with Mr. Hicks happened, administration had one of these put into every med drawer. I'm sure it would have been a big uproar on the news if the world hadn't gone to shit. I'm surprised no one took this." She snapped the magazine back in, unlocking the safety.

Shane swiped it from her hands. "Well we ain't waiting around to ask why. Get behind me." He handed her the flashlight and they backed up. One more shove by the dead and they were in. The door swung open with a bang, revealing the two ugliest people Scarlett had ever seen. These two looked nothing like the reanimated dead from upstairs. Scarlett realized that she'd been spoiled, seeing only the freshly dead wake up. At least those people still resembled humans.

These two looked like they'd died three days ago and sat in the hot sun. One of them no longer had lips. Scarlett tried not to imagine how he'd lost them. The other one had an open, gaping stomach. Whether he had just popped from the heat or someone else chewed on him for a while, Scarlett didn't know. Both of them had several chunks bit off their limbs.

The smell was gag-worthy. "Good _god_." Shane stumbled back a couple more steps, pinning Scarlett against the wall. The walkers shuffled toward them.

"Shane, shoot them!" She felt Shane's shoulder blade jolt as he took two shots, followed by two thuds. He swore, and then there were two more shots.

10 seconds of relative silence passed. Slowly Scarlett realized that she had two handfuls of Shane's shirt, her face buried in his back as she heaved air in and out in terror. It took a minute to gather the courage to let go. When she did, Shane swerved stiffly and pulled her into a tight hug.

"You okay?" She nodded, noting not two, but four bodies contorted in a heap at the doorway. "They came in as soon as I knocked out the first two. Do not get away from me, understand?" Scarlett nodded again, sobered by the danger of the situation. As quickly as her courage and resolve came back to her, it left again. She felt like a small child.

Shane crept toward the door and peered out both sides to make sure the hallways were clear. They were. He waved her forward. "Here." He pulled out his own Glock and handed it to her. Dislodging the magazine from the hospital's gun, he divided the bullets evenly among the two weapons and put a bullet in each chamber.

"I seen you shoot. You ain't bad; all that range time did you good. Think you could catch one in the head if ya had to?" Scarlett swallowed. She hadn't been to the range with the boys since before Rick and Carl died. Add in her total and utter exhaustion, and she figured popping a moving person in the head was a crapshoot, at best. But she had no choice.

They advanced from the safety of the supply room, hopping over the bodies quickly. As brave as Scarlett wanted to be, she couldn't bring herself to walk out from behind Shane. He didn't seem to mind. "My squad car is on the other side of the parking lot. Closest I could get. I got no idea what the fuck is going on out there, but if it's chaos, we run in the opposite direction. Sound good?"

"My gut tells me there's going to be chaos," she said.

They came to Allison's body. The only intact part of her left was her lifeless head. Scarlett made a point not to look. They jumped down from the docking garage and into the parking lot. It was vacant of moving bodies, but positively full of dead, motionless bodies. Shane put his shirt up over his nose, gun still out in front of him. Scarlett kept her hand over her mouth and nose; she felt like crying with fear. They crept past the white bundles.

A massive commotion carried on overhead at the top of the hill. They couldn't see what was happening, but Scarlett saw smoke billowing up from the hospital. "They bombed the ER…" Shane tensed his jaw in response, grabbing her hand and leading her to the far end of the hill, toward the back of parking lot. There was so much yelling and screaming. Rapid gunfire rang out every few seconds.

"I came down this way," he muttered. "There was a huge herd goin' straight for that crowd of people at the ER." He led her up the hill slowly. They kept low to the ground to avoid being seen or shot.

A harsh voice barked above them. He sounded close. "St Clair, 2 Zekes, on your left!" The static of a walkie-talkie crackled and a muffled voice answered. Shane tentatively stood, grasping Scarlett's sweaty hand tightly. Scarlett's gun trembled in her hand as she stood.

Before them was a scene out of World War II. Huge looming tanks rolled around the hospital parking lot with their monstrous barrels swiveling in every direction. The apache helicopters looked immensely bigger on the ground; Scarlett had watched them land before she noticed the woman in the hallway. All around the machines swarmed green military men, civilians, and dead people. The thought of dead people still made Sky shudder. Flashes of gunfire burst at every corner of the lot, mimicking the crackling fire of the now-burning ER to their right. The only thought that came to Scarlett's mind was _we're fucked_.

She jumped at the sudden sound of tornado sirens going off. This alerted the distracted soldier. He swung around instantly, pointing an AR-17 right at the two of them.

"Wow wow, easy soldier." Shane dropped Sky's hand and raised his own, gun dangling from his finger at the trigger. Scarlett did the same. "We're just tryin' to get somewhere safe, same as err'body else." The soldier lowered his weapon quickly. Clearly the military man considered anybody alive as safe.

"Sir, unless you get out of Atlanta you ain't gonna find nowhere safe." He swung his weapon to the right, shooting two walkers in the head. "They're multiplying like goddamn rabbits. Take your girl somewhere else; camping, in the woods, anywhere but here." Scarlett blushed at _your girl_. She still considered herself Rick's, even after a year and a half.

Shane didn't like that answer. "The news been sayin' nothing but 'Get to Atlanta' since this shit started. You're tellin' me _not _to go to that FEMA camp?"

The soldier considered his next response for a moment. "Listen, I ain't exactly authorized to say this, but there's a threshold."

Shane crossed his arms. "A threshold?"

"Yeah. We're under orders to act once the ratio of infected to non-infected hits a certain point. And nobody will say it, but that ratio will happen, and soon; before the end of the week. Wanna know what happens when we hit that threshold? We napalm the streets. Situation becomes futile, and the need to take out these fucks outweighs the duty to save whoever else is still lingering in the city; refugee camp or not."

Scarlett's hands floated to her mouth as she let the man's words sink in. Shane rubbed his jaw in disbelief. People were dying all around them. A woman screamed, audible over the howling sirens. "I just gotta keep her safe, man."

The soldier nodded. "Better move now, partner."

At that, Scarlett laced her fingers securely around Shane's. They broke into a trot, headed toward the road.

**Shane**

* * *

A walker stumbled toward them as they ran. It was small, childlike. Shane aimed and pulled the trigger, ignoring his gnawing suspicion that he had seen the dead kid once before, in a car, with his two siblings. _No time for guilt_. He tightened his grasp on Sky's hand as they jogged along the road, making a wide perimeter around the warzone that used to be a hospital. He had to get to his squad car.

They rounded a particularly large tank and skidded to an immediate halt. "Aw you gotta be kiddin' me." The herd hadn't moved far from the ER rubble. In fact, it had regrouped right in front of it, albeit a little smaller from the gunfire and multiple explosions. Shane's squad car sat square in the middle of dozens of walkers.

Scarlett moaned. "No way Shane. No way." She backed up a few steps, pulling on his hand.

A soldier popped his head out of the top of the tank. "Are you guys crazy? _Fall back_!" He waved his hands violently and retreated back into the tank.

Shane growled and erupted into a royally pissed off yell. Images of Rick popped into his head, of the moment in the squad car when his best friend made him promise he would keep Scarlett safe. They had just emerged from a gun fight, and Rick's Kevlar vest proudly held a failed bullet over his bruised ribs. It had shaken them both enough to plan for the moments when they might not be around.

The sirens howled on. A walker smelled the two and began making its painfully slow journey to the potential prey. Shane cursed and turned to Scarlett. Her petrified look made him sick with guilt. He kissed her roughly on the forehead. "This way, Sky. Just keep going."

They retreated, running clumsily into the middle of the road. Shane had to think. A neighborhood outlined this side of the hospital, but it was a crowded one, one that Shane didn't trust. There were bad people in these houses on a good day; he'd dealt with them before. He didn't want to imagine how they'd act in this mess; or even worse, as one of those roamers. He just needed to find another car…

At that moment, a maroon Honda Civic roared down one of those neighborhood roads, right toward them. It had a neon sign on top; one of those pizza logo things. Shane instinctively pulled Scarlett across the road and onto the grass. But then, he had another idea.

"Shane? What are you doing? Shane!"

He darted back out into the middle of the road and held his hands in front of the approaching car. It continued to blaze toward him. "Aw Jesus Christ, stop brother." At the last second it skidded to a halt, rocking back on its little wheels.

Shane glanced back over at Scarlett to make sure she was okay. Her hands gripped her head as if she'd expected a collision. The Glock jutted out between her fingers into the Sky.

He turned back toward the car as the driver stepped out of his seat. "Dude, what the hell? That's how you want to die?" In a split second, Shane knew the kid was harmless. He motioned for Scarlett without taking his eyes off the driver, fearing he'd hop in and drive away.

"I'm gonna kindly ask you for a ride, sir." The hint of sarcasm was not lost on the man, but regardless, he threw up his hands and let Shane and Scarlett fall into the Civic, muttering about not having a choice. "You're gonna want to back up." Shane nodded toward the parking lot of the hospital, buckling himself in tight.

"Yeah, you aren't kidding." The stranger whipped his car around, starting down the road the way he'd come. He stole a sideways glance at the cop in his passenger seat.

"Listen buddy, we 'ppreciate the ride. My ridegot over run by walkers back there." He glanced back at Scarlett, who gripped her gun with white knuckles and kept her gaze on the road.

"_Walkers_; fitting name. You can call me Glenn." Glenn held out a hand as he drove, which Shane accepted with a firm shake. He peered over at the kid, and a kid he was. Not a speck of facial hair graced his face. He wore a dirty hat with the same pizza logo, which covered thick black hair and shaded his slanted eyes. He was skinny, couldn't be older than 21.

The kid shifted in his seat. "I guess we have to find another way to the FEMA camp. Is that where you guys were headed?"

Shane sat forward, resting his elbows on his knees. "Nah man, you don't wanna go there. A soldier gave us some enlightening information about plans to drop napalm all over Atlanta."

Glenn swerved around an abandoned suitcase in the road and looked at Shane in disbelief. "_Napalm?" _He groaned. It was clear to Shane that this kid had less of a plan than he and Scarlett did.

Scarlett suddenly sat forward. "Turn left here." Glenn obliged, squealing around the corner last minute. Shane raised an eyebrow and studied Scarlett quizzically. "Glenn, my name is Scarlett and this is Shane. I've got lots of supplies at my house and a sturdier car, no offense. If you'll take us there, I think you should come up the mountain with us. It's the least I can offer after taking us away from the hospital. The woods will be safer at this point."

To reinforce her point, a woman with a missing arm and no lower jaw stumbled into the street, attracted by their moving car. A living man came up behind her and bashed her in the head with a shovel. Shane craned his neck as they drove past. The man dropped to his knees next to the lifeless body, sobbing. A few houses down, two teenagers watched their house erupt in flames. Shane wondered if their parents were inside. Everything was slowly falling apart.

He fell back against the seat, defeated by the circumstances. He had stolen Sky away from a sure grave, but everything had gone wrong since then. He couldn't accept being so out of control anymore. Their lives depended on being smart and alert.

Shane readjusted his hat, wishing for a stiff shot of whiskey. "Take a right on Chestnut."

* * *

_Finally, Glenn! Stay tuned, peeps._

_xoxo_

_missCanary_


	5. Chapter 5

_Notes from missCanary_

_- Finally I've finished this chapter! I've been wrestling with this story. To me, it feels like this chapter follows the real TWD story pretty closely. I don't necessarily want that, so just know that it will veer off next chapter!_

_- Enjoy!_

**Scarlett**

* * *

Hundreds of fat cicadas buzzed in the trees all around the highway, mimicking the low hum of traffic and people. The dark night didn't forgive the heat; people everywhere were irritable, scared, and exhausted.

Scarlett sat in the passenger seat of her Jeep, idly fanning herself with a magazine. She gazed out the window at two women beside her. They'd long since gotten out of their sedan and were chatting with an older gentleman who drove an RV. In fact, everybody was out of their cars. Traffic hadn't moved in over an hour.

In front of the Jeep stood Shane. He had a map spread out on the hood, which he and Glenn studied intently with a flashlight. The old man walked over and began talking to them. Scarlett sighed. She was so tired. _I can't remember the last time I slept_. But, funny as the human body is, she knew she wouldn't sleep any time soon. Not until they found safety.

She couldn't help but notice the way Shane's tendons moved in his arms as he leaned against the Jeep. The day had been so terrifying, it felt good to lean back and watch him. He was chewing on a toothpick, which made Scarlett chuckle. She knew he'd been trying to quit chewing tobacco. His jaw muscles flexed as he chewed, squinting at the small lines of the map.

He glanced over at her and shot a small smile, which alerted Scarlett to the fact that she was staring. _Jesus, I must be tired_. She pinched the bridge of her nose, fighting off a migraine, and pulled the door open.

"Aye, Sky. C'mere a sec."

She held up a delicate finger. "One minute."

From the back seat Scarlett grabbed an energy drink, and, after a moment of thought, slipped Rick's old pistol into a holster and onto her hip. She covered it as best she could with her white v-neck shirt, adjusting her jeans. The weight of the gun just about pulled them off her small hips, which jutted out after a week of stress and barely eating. After a half-assed effort to pull her blonde hair into a neater pony tail, she shut the door and joined the group.

"Scarlett, this is Dale. This traffic ain't gonna move. He knows about a quarry down a turnoff a few miles back. Whatcha think about bunkin' up there for a few days until this mess clears up?"

Scarlett offered her small hand to Dale. His calloused fingers accepted her handshake firmly, but his eyes smiled kindly.

She looked toward Shane, about to respond, but was cut off by a loud drone from above.

Three monstrous jets passed over the wooded highway. Gasps and exclamations erupted all around the road. Scarlett glanced at Shane, and without a word they both set off in the direction of the jets, darting around cars toward the tree line.

"Over there." Shane pointed to a break in the trees, and they joined a few other people to watch the jets descend down the mountain and toward Atlanta. Something dropped from the bottom of a plane, crashing into the city with a crimson explosion.

Two men pushed gruffly past Scarlett. "The fuck they droppin' bombs for?"

The other man clapped his companion on the back, strangely gleeful. "Because the world is fucked, little brother! May as well bomb it to shit."

More explosions detonated in the streets, and it dawned on Scarlett.

"That's the napalm." She covered her mouth in fear and disbelief, falling to a squatting position as the weight of the realization hit her. Shane swore, hooking his hands behind his head as he watched his city flare up with the deadly mixture.

One of the men turned around, the younger one. He had dark hair, grown into a messy shag. His black vest covered a white wife beater, giving Scarlett an all-around impression that he wasn't to be fucked with. He peered at her skeptically. "Whaddya mean, napalm?"

Shane spat out his toothpick. "Military guy down at the hospital told us this'ud happen once a certain number of walkers hit." He glanced at Scarlett as she stood back up. "Didn't expect it to happen 6 hours later."

Scarlett chewed her lip, holding back the emotion trying to creep up her throat. "What if we'd stayed down there?"

A heaviness set over the small group of people. A family of three stood on the other side of Shane. Scarlett watched their little girl, about 12, hugging her mother in fear as she watched the explosions. The thought of Carl being here to live this filled her with a strange sense of relief. _How could I have protected him from this_? She couldn't think of a single thing to say to a child that could make this all okay. Her heart ached for the mother.

The older brother spat, which broke the grief-filled silence. "Fuck that piss-ass town. Got all we need right here." He turned and looked Scarlett up and down, leering. "Ain't that right, little lady? Maybe I don't have _everything_ I need, if y'know what I mean. Name's Merle." He licked his lips suggestively.

Shane shifted his weight, setting his jaw with calculated control. "That how you pick up women? You get them 10 dollar whores that way?" Merle grinned, hands flying up in mock surrender.

"My apologies. Didn't mean to tread on nobody's territory." He gave Scarlett one last look and then edged around Shane with exaggerated care. Shane followed him with his eyes, turning to watch the man walk off.

The younger man hesitated a minute, looking at Scarlett with an expression she couldn't decipher. "Daryl! That blunt is callin' my name, brother." The man, Daryl, shifted his weight, and with a nod to Shane, slipped past them and after his brother.

**Shane**

* * *

Shane gazed at the burning city, tense and furious. In his more hot-headed days, he would have punched the fucking sneer right off that redneck asshole. Everything in him wanted to make an example out of that dick, but he resisted for the sake of the family next to him. He had noticed how the mother cringed every time a swear word hit her daughter's ears.

He finally turned to Scarlett and saw her hand fingering something on her hip. She was watching the two men as they wove back into the crowd on the highway. "You doin' alright?" He nodded to the bulge underneath her t-shirt. "When'd you clip that on?"

She pried her attention away from the highway. "Earlier. Now I'm glad I did." Sky pressed the heels of her palms into her eyes. "God, I've got such a headache." Shane nodded, rubbing the back of his neck anxiously.

"Ain't hard to believe." He decided not to press her any further about the men. They were gone anyway. He turned back to suggest that they head to the car, however, and noticed that Sky was crying. She backed away a few steps, shaking her head.

"I'm sorry," she sobbed. "I can't hold it in any more. I don't want to cry." Shane sighed sadly and caught her elbow as she stepped back. He pulled Sky into a hug, wrapping his strong arms around her firmly. He felt her notice the girl and her mom watching. "I'm so sorry," she said, holding up her hand in assurance. "I'm just having a moment. Everything's okay." The mother smiled sympathetically, leading her daughter away to give them some privacy.

"Rick and Carl died and I thought that was the worst part of my life. Then this; the hospital, Mr. Hicks, Allison; god, the supply room. Now Atlanta is in flames, and some stupid douchebag is what made me cry; of course." She talked into Shane's chest as she cried. "I'm so fucking tired, Shane."

Shane pulled her off him gently and craned his head down to eye level; carefully he took her hands off her face. "Hey. It's gonna be okay. We're gonna get somewhere safe, I promise." He wiped tears off her cheeks with his thumbs, feeling absolutely no confidence in that promise. A pit settled into his stomach as he took one last look at Atlanta. "Let's go find Glenn and let them baby blues rest."

* * *

They decided to sleep in their cars when they arrived at the quarry. It was still dark; Shane didn't want to wrangle the damn tents blindly, especially before he cleared the area. So they all parked in a huddle. They'd attracted a good-sized group of people with their quarry plans, which concerned the cop a little bit. He didn't know any of them well enough to call them safe, not even Glenn. But the rules had changed. There was safety in numbers, he couldn't deny it. That took precedence over background checks.

Still, he insisted that there be two watch-people at all times, and he offered to take first shift with Glenn. They settled on top of Dale's RV, guns in their laps.

Glenn looked around restlessly. "If someone had told me last month that I'd been sitting on top of an RV keeping a lookout for dead people I would have thought they were crazy." He chuckled nervously, looking down at the shotgun in his lap.

Shane looked over at him from his chair. "You ever shoot a gun, Glenn?"

"Call of Duty count?"

Shane chuckled. _Great._ "Nah, Xbox ain't quite the same, buddy." He sat up in his seat, scanning the tree line. "Tell yeh what; you do the lookin', I'll do the shootin'. I think we're good for the moment, though. Don't seem like them walkers have gotten up this far."

Glenn nodded. A few minutes of awkward silence passed. "So, you and Scarlett; are you guys married?" Shane smirked. Instinctively his eyes floated down to the Jeep where Sky was sleeping. She'd just about fallen into a coma by the time they arrived at the quarry. Little body like that couldn't handle much more activity.

"Nah, we ain't married." He glanced over at Glenn, who seemed unsatisfied with that vague answer. "Just friends, Glenn." He didn't have the desire to delve into his and Scarlett's complicated past, no matter how harmless the kid seemed. He couldn't even sort out his own feelings for her, let alone describe them.

They settled into silence, listening to the cicadas. Sleeping bodies stirred in their cars every once in a while; a cough here or there. A coyote yipped in the distance, or maybe it was a dog. The two girls that tagged along with Dale, Andrea and Amy, talked softly in their sedan. Every sound made Glenn jump, the poor kid. He tried hard to relax, Shane could tell. If he hadn't spent a week putting down walkers before they took over, he'd be jumpy too.

2 hours passed. In the near distance, a motorcycle roared, cutting the silence of the night sharply. _That _made Shane jump. He sat up defensively, tense and on high alert. Even if it wasn't a walker, people nearby were worth keeping a keen eye. He didn't need looters slinking in while everybody slept.

Dale emerged from the RV, peering up with a smile. "Shane, you've been a great coordinator of all this. You must be tired; why don't you let me have a turn up there? Dang motorcycle woke me up anyway."

Shane ran a hand over his head, scanning the tree line once more. The protector in him wanted full control of the security. Dale seemed to catch on to his hesitation. "How about I come get you if something seems off? Glenn, Andrea will join me up there. You get some sleep too."

Shane sighed, accepting that he'd have to delegate. He made his way down the ladder, throwing his hat on his head when he hit the grass. "Thanks, Dale."

As he made his way over to the Jeep, something snapped loudly in the woods, followed by a hushed string of swear words. Instantly Shane's gun was out, and he squatted low amongst the cars. More rustling wafted out from the trees. There was nobody reliable to call for backup, which pissed Shane off. "Fuckin'…dammit." He crept toward the woods against his better judgment, gun out and ready to kill. Glenn, Andrea and Dale hadn't seemed to notice Shane's reaction. _Better'n them taggin' along playing cops and robbers, I guess_.

It was dark in the tree line, but the rustling continued. Shane leaned against a large oak, craning his neck to peek around it. A large form, undoubtedly a person, was hunched over with his back turned to Shane. He presumed the person was alive, judging by the previous swear words.

With a moment of hesitation, Shane looked up, acknowledging how stupid this was without another person to help him. He quietly crept toward the person, gun trained on the head. He was almost to a comfortable distance to make his presence known, when…

"Don't even _fuckin_' think about it." The man swung around, and Shane found himself staring at a crossbow aimed right at his head.

They stood off for a moment, weapons pointed in the humid night. "The hell you thinkin', creepin' around out here? Don't you know it ain't safe?" Shane was being condescending and he knew it. Old habits die hard. He vaguely recognized the man from the highway; Daryl.

Daryl huffed. "Ain't no laws 'gainst settin' snares, cop." He lowered his crossbow. Shane lowered his gun, but still kept both hands on it. They regarded each other suspiciously, trying to decide if the other was safe or crazy.

To Shane's great displeasure, Merle emerged from farther into the woods, eating a candy bar. "Well well well; fancy meetin' you here! Come to learn a trick or two from Lil D? Where's that pretty lil thang you were with?"

Shane bared his teeth briefly, trying to hold in his anger. Daryl, he could handle. The man was at least quiet. Merle, he wasn't so sure. "Tell yeh what, boys; I ain't too comfortable with y'all stalkin' round here like you ain't tryn'a be seen. Don't reflect too well."

"Aw c'mon, Ranger! This ain't gotta be hostile." Merle held up his hands again sarcastically, and moved to hook his arm around Daryl's neck. "Baby brother here's just tryin' to find us somethin' to eat!"

Amy, Andrea, Dale, and Glenn appeared behind Shane. Amy, a young spunky blonde, gasped. "Is that a gun? What's going on?"

Shane suppressed a frustrated growl and shoved his Glock into the holster behind him, not wanting to cause a panic. Dale stepped forward. "Everything okay out here? We heard talking, couldn't find Shane." He looked at the three of them expectantly.

Merle, of course, piped up. "Suuuure it's fine! Mr. Cop Man here was just offering us a place to stay in exchange for some fresh meat. Daryl here is an expert hunter." He smacked his brother on the back, glancing briefly but pointedly at Amy. Daryl just looked broodingly at his brother, hands still clamped around his crossbow.

Shane huffed. "Naw, what I was really sayin' is kindly find another place to bunk tonight. This site's taken." He turned to walk back toward the cars, but Dale continued to study the two new men. "Comin', Dale?"

"Well you said yourself that we'd probably only be here a few days." He seemed to be thinking out loud. "And there's safety in numbers." He turned to Shane. "Right?"

Shane looked at Dale like he was crazy. Was he _really _inviting these assholes into their camp? The camp that Scarlett was sleeping soundly in, no less. "You gotta be kiddin' me."

"I'm just saying that if we're trying to ride out the storm, we could probably use a couple extra people. And the fact that they know how to hunt drives a pretty hard bargain; that's something we need to know how to do…" Shane heard Merle chuckle, which made his nostrils flare. Daryl muttered about how stupid this all was; at least he had some pride.

"Maybe I will stay up," Glenn muttered.

Shane sighed, ripping his hat off. "No. Ol' Dale can keep an eye on 'em. Imma go get some goddamn sleep." He stormed out of the clearing toward the Jeep. No way in hell he was leaving Scarlett's side tonight.

**Scarlett**

* * *

Hot sun filtered through the windows, hitting Scarlett's pale eyelids. She stirred, trying to squeeze out the invasion. _Forgot to close my curtains_, she mused, only partially conscious. With a stretch, she turned in an attempt to find darkness again. Her knee bumped against something hard. She tried to get comfortable, but something else was jutting into her hip.

Slowly she opened her eyes. She blinked a bit, attempting to swallow. She was in her Jeep. _Why are you in your Jeep, Scarlett…? _ She let the events of yesterday slowly greet her. It was annoying, having to coax her memory into function most mornings.

Slowly she pushed herself to sitting from the reclined seat. Sweat dripped down her neck. _Fucking Georgia. _ She looked around a bit, trying to focus her vision, and noticed that she was alone in the car. Soon she saw Shane perched on the front hood of the car with his hands clasped tightly at his mouth.

Seeing him made her smile. She felt safe around him. With a yawn, she checked her watch. 10:30. "Dang." For being in a cramped car, that was a long sleep. Her body thanked her for it.

She slowly pulled the car door open, alerting Shane that she was awake. He greeted her with a lopsided smile. "Mornin', sunshine."

"Are we at the quarry?"

"Just about. Near the top of it." He looked at her warmly, as if he'd been waiting for her to wake up. Scarlett raised an eyebrow.

"Damn, I know I look like hell in a hand basket. How're you happy to see this mess?"

He shrugged with a smile, looking out at the clearing. "Just 'ppreciate a familiar face, tha's all." Scarlett searched his face with her eyes. He seemed different this morning. She couldn't place it, so instead she examined her surroundings, taking in all the tents nestled in the trees. Most of the cars and the RV remained in the clearing. Shane had moved hers by their tent.

"Y'all have been busy." Guilt dropped in her stomach. "You should've waked me up. I could have helped."

Shane smirked, hopping off the car. "Darlin', you spent 3 straight days fightin' Atlanta in the hospital. Don't gimme that." She followed him as he sauntered toward Dale's RV. "There ain't a shower, but there's running water, soap, and toothpaste. Believe me, it'll feel like Heaven." She stopped at the door and he leaned against the RV, looking at her and chewing his toothpick.

Scarlett chuckled. "Jesus, what?"

The way he was looking at her right now made her stomach twinge. It was serious and intense, and it made her nervous. His brown eyes looked exceptionally dark. "Jus' that familiar face." He seemed like he was mentally debating something, trying to decide his next move. For a few seconds, tension hung in the hot air between them.

Then, the moment was over. He patted the RV loudly. "Er'body's down at the quarry; nobody to intrude." He started back toward the car. "I'll be cleanin' the guns over here. I'll fill you in when yer done." Still, he looked over his shoulder at her pointedly as he twisted his toothpick in his mouth.

Scarlett's face was screwed into a look of pure confusion. She shook her head lightly and disappeared into the RV.

* * *

_Hope y'all liked seeing some familiar names!_

_The more I think about Daryl, the more I want him in this fic. And I really want some smut. Smut is fun, right?_

_;)_

_xoxo_

_missCanary_


End file.
